I Know Her Pain, I Think

A week after a horrible run home from work, due to the re-bruising of my bruised ribs, I try again. It’s still not a totally pain free experience but it’s not as bad as last week. Oddly pleasant and very very satisfying. I’ve been inspired you see. Former world Ironman champion Chrissie Wellington came off her bike and did considerable damage to her leg and elbow,

but it was the internal bruising to her upper chest and hip that was the biggest problem. I know her pain, I think.

Was this however going to keep her out of this year’s Ironman World Championships? Nope. An Ironman by the way is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile cycle and a full 26.2 mile marathon run. She's a nutter obviously but an admirable one because not only did she enter, she went and won the damn thing. So if Chrissie Wellington can win an Ironman with internal bruising then surely I can jog as far as Stapleford?

In the end I run almost 14k. Very pleasing and it wasn’t exactly slow either. I could have gone further but I wanted to get back to the boys who were home alone, so as soon as got to where the buses into Nottingham were every ten minutes, I stopped to catch one.

If I’d known that those every ten minutes buses were running twenty minutes late, as a senior gentleman tells me, I would have kept going a bit further. I start to say to him that surely if they’re all twenty minutes late then they’ll still be spaced at every ten minutes but I don’t and somehow the wise old man turns out to be correct.

(Tuesday 11th October)

Almost Romantic

I’m having trouble turning over in bed this morning, thanks to the re-broken/bruised ribs. Not good. Luckily I have no race this weekend. Things aren’t so bad once I'm upright just as long as I don’t cough, sneeze or laugh and keep breathing to a minimum. Other than that they're fine.

Later L picks me up from work and we head north. I’ve found some fool of a B&B owner who will take us and the boys in Blackpool. Which is roughly where we have two dog shows and a run this weekend. It’s a quaint little place, almost romantic, if we hadn't brought the dogs. A weekend without them would be nice but I’d look a bit daft at the dog shows.

Well, we try to head north. We join the M6 at Stoke and then queue from there all the way to Blackpool. Curse the good weather. 4 hours is a new personal worst.

When we finally get there and Blackpool is horrendous. Full of people. Families, drunks, Scots, the lot. We wander round looking for somewhere to buy fish and chips, there's plenty of those and then somewhere nice to eat them, there's none of them. The seafront would be a nice location if it’s wasn’t fully booked and there wasn’t a massive traffic jam, known as the illuminations traffic blocking the way to it.

There’s absolutely no chance of finding a bar that sells anything you’d want to drink or in fact one that isn’t offering karaoke. We head back to the hotel and enjoy some wine from the bar there, sitting on the front veranda. Quite pleasant actually. Then some more contraband wine in the room, as alcohol is not allowed in the rooms.

(Friday 30th September)

Life’s Too Short To Be Injured

Two nights camping on hard ground didn’t help my bruised ribs, so a night in a proper bed was very welcome. My ribs are on the mend and as long as I don’t make any sudden movements I’m fine, but word on the street is that these things take time e.g. around four weeks and that’s not good news. Life’s too short to be injured.

Still, it all pales into insignificance compared with poor old Johnny Hoogerland’s injuries. He’s the chap who got shunted by the press car into a barbed wire fence during yesterday’s Tour de France. Have you seen the photos? OMG. I’m sure I’m not legally allowed to reproduce those photos, not that it’s stopped me before, but do have a look, from behind the sofa. Oh go on, here you are, everyone else seems to have reproduced them.



His legs are totally lacerated and it’s incredible that he didn’t sever some other vital equipment; that is apart from his legs.

The man’s already a legend for carrying on and finishing the stage, even if he doesn’t continue in the race. Luckily he’s got a rest day today to try and recover. I’m guessing as he’s got the polka dot jersey he will at least start tomorrow, if only to get his five minutes of fame and he has to pull up five miles down the road.

I’m late for dog training but not as late as everyone else. It’s ten past before anyone else turns up, I thought I’d been stood up. Wouldn’t be the first time. To kill time, I let Doggo help me put away the horse jumps that our kind hosts have again left out for us. Once in the arena, he marks his territory, then sits in the middle and refuses to leave. ‘I am training tonight’ his eyes say. Sorry mate you’re not, but I promise on Wednesday you are.

(Monday 11th July)